The Finals review
The Finals
Plan Your Getaway
(Immortal)
New Jersey pop punks avoid the teen and O.C. clichés, opting for an effective, if frill-less formula.
Calling Plan Your Getaway “pedestrian” is accurate if connotatively misleading. The word implies mediocrity, which is at play here but not heavily. To call The Finals “no frills” would indicate a level of gutter authenticity, which isn’t their bag, either. No, Getaway ignores the constructs of hardcore, the teen punk preening, and studio magic in favor of straightahead, here-we-are melodic punk. “It’s Always Something” goes for Smoking Popes without going for go(l)d, its guitar solo is processed but not into anything familiar. Power chords are displaced by open chords and if there’s a piano line to be cut, so be it. No ho-hum, but hummable. Just enough.
— Kevin Keegan
